Forgiveness of sins is an immense subject or issue. It costs the world billions of lost hours because many people, unbelievers and sadly some believers in Christ as their Saviour, go on nursing grievances and not forgiving actual or perceived wrongs against them. This leads to bitterness, unhappiness, probably twisted thinking and also broken relationships. Part of this is because many believers in Christ as their Saviour do not grasp the completeness of what God has done for them through Christ.

Paul, by the Holy Spirit, makes a wonderful statement in 1 Corinthians 15:3: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” Paul had first received this message and so it was true in himself and is true in every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. God is the judge for sins (Genesis 18:5; Psalm 75:7; 2 Timothy 4:8), is holy (1 Samuel 2:2; Luke 4:34; 1 Peter 1:16; Revelation 4:8), is just (Isaiah 45:21), knows everything (Psalm 147:5; John 1:25) and does not change (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8). So what was the impact on God and His judgment when Christ died for my sins and how many of my sins did Christ die for?

God, in His inspired Word the Bible, says, “In whom {His dear Son v13} we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:14). “The forgiveness of sins” is stated without any exceptions being given. This is confirmed by, “And you … having {past tense} forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13) and “… the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). So, remarkably, all the sins of the believer in Christ, past, present and future, have now been forgiven and therefore their standing now before God is on the ground of total forgiveness. Consequently each believer is totally secure and delivered from God’s judgment through faith in Christ alone. This is incredible but because God says it therefore it must be true of all believers. Just believe or rest in this truth and enjoy it.

The reason for our joy is because the basis for our complete forgiveness is found entirely outside of ourselves. “In whom {The Beloved i.e. Christ v6} we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7), “… even as God for Christ’s sake hath {again past tense} forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32) and “… even as Christ forgave you …” (Colossians 3:13). So Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, Who cannot fail, through His death and resurrection, has become the basis of the believer’s complete forgiveness before God. Ephesians 1:7 says it is “according to the riches of his grace.” Grace is God’s underserved favour (see Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 11:6) and so God forgives us according to the riches of His undeserved favour. This is reflected in Psalm 86:5 “For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.” Romans 5:20 says “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” So God’s law reveals the offence of our sin but where sin reached its high water mark God’s grace has over flooded it. As God is infinite, there is more grace to cover my sins than there are sins to be covered by grace. God’s grace is always bigger than my sins.

Colossians 2:6 says “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” What did you do to receive Christ? You realised you were guilty of sin before God and so deserved His judgment and that you could not save yourself. However you heard of Christ and realised that He was your only hope of salvation. So you looked outside of yourself and you put your eyes and mind entirely on Christ and trusted that on the cross He paid the complete penalty for your sins and so you are completely forgiven by God and you also, amazingly, received Christ to live in you. Therefore the Holy Spirit said, through the apostle Paul, that the way you started your Christian life is the way to continue in your Christian life i.e. keep looking outside of yourself to Christ. When it comes to the question of sin we are good at looking inside of ourselves for the answer(s) but God says that we are to look outside of ourselves to Christ for the answer.

But what about my future sins? Were they also paid for by Christ’s death on the cross? At the time of Christ’s death on the cross all your sins were future sins. The fact that God says “the forgiveness of sins” therefore includes every one of your sins whenever they were or, sadly, will be committed.

Can a Christian commit the unpardonable sin? As stated above God says “And you … having {past tense} forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13) and “… the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Therefore a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour cannot commit the unpardonable sin. The unpardonable sin is mentioned in (Matthew 12:22-32; Mark 3:22-30 and Luke 12:10) and was committed by the unbelieving Pharisees and scribes when they charged the Jesus Christ with doing His miracles in the power of the devil (called there “Beelzebub”). The Lord Jesus called it “he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29). So the Lord Jesus said this to unbelievers and not to believers.

Another subject, to be dealt with elsewhere, is that when you trusted in Christ as your Saviour, you became a child of God. 1 John 3:1-2a “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons {or children} of God: … Beloved, now are we the sons of God …”. I do not know what your views of a father are but God is far better and greater than any earthly father. Just as with your natural family you are always a child of your parents so the same relationship applies to God our Father. However just as sin disrupts the human family fellowship, but not the relationship, so the same applies to being a child of God. As noted above our relationship with God is totally dependent on Christ but our fellowship with God depends on my obedience to God’s Word.

The believer walks in the light (1 John 2:8) but that does not means sinless perfection while on the earth because while they received eternal life when they trusted in Christ they still have the sinful nature within.

1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 2:2 says, “And he is the propitiation (the basis on which God shows mercy to guilty sinners and His wrath against sin is appeased) for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” This is judicial forgiveness when God as judge forgave believers in Christ once and eternally for the penalty of all our sins and this forgiveness is available for all the world to believe. However 1 John 1:8-9 is to do with our day to day fellowship with God as our loving Father and which we need all through our earthly Christian life. As noted above sin disrupts our fellowship with God but God has made it possible for that disruption to be removed by the believer’s confession of their sin and His forgiveness and fellowship is therefore restored. The believer’s walk with the Lord in Divine light is not a matter of reaching sinless perfection. That would mean becoming the light which only God is. It is rather responding to the light which God reveals to us through His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit in us and perfection is our aim.

“If we confess our sins”
1 John 1:8 “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves …” “Sin” refers to the sinful nature within, or the root, but “sins” refer to what we do i.e. the fruit. The apostle John recognizes the possibility of a believer committing a sin, in contrast to the habitual sinning of lost sinners. It shows that the believer, in the self-abasing sense of “our sins”, shares God’s condemnation of them. As God knows everything He will be not shocked by a believer’s sins although He will be saddened by them. Therefore do not be casual and just generalise in confession but specifically name it/them. Whether they are sins of: thought/attitude, word, sinful deeds committed or good deeds omitted, and whether they are secret or public you cannot run away from feelings of guilt and shame. However you can keep short accounts with God. When a committed/omitted sin is recognised you do not dispute it with, or try to justify it before, the Lord. You face the truth, with God, and immediately confess it and, where necessary, confess it with people. After that can come your freedom.

“He is faithfuland just”
The “He” is God (see 1 John 1:5-7) and faithful means that God, our spiritual Father, is trustworthy to fulfil His word. God is not wrongly going to cover up what you have confessed but because of the shedding of Christ’s blood for sin He can justly or rightly forgive you. God does not forgive/cleanse us because He is lenient and laid-back but because He is faithful to His Word and always acts correctly.

“to forgive us our sins”
As the word “forgive” is, literally, “to send away”, it means that God does not hold that sin against us any more and so on confession fellowship with Him is restored and God wants us to enjoy it. You might confess your sin to God and still feel guilty afterwards and so you confess it again, etc. While a conscience before God will feel guilty, the believer must not mix up feelings of guilt with God’s clear Word. The authority of God’s Word says that if we confess our sins to Him, He will rightly forgive us, and our feelings of guilt will never change that. While there is no sin that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse away it cost Him a lot to make that Divinely possible for us. And since God forgives us we must forgive, and not constantly reproach, ourselves.

“and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”
God does not only forgive us but will cleanse us from all unrighteousness, i.e. the effects of our sin. Since “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1:7) then that covers “all unrighteousness” as well. While forgiveness is for sinful acts, the cleansing is from all ‘unright’ issues and has to do with the believer’s personal character. This includes having a cleansing affect on our: depravity, perverseness, wickedness, waywardness and wrong attitudes etc. This is confirmed by: “He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3) and so it is good to pray, “Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness …” (Psalm 5:8). One way to help with this cleansing is to read God’s Word, the Bible, as in Ephesians 5:26 “That He (Christ v25) might sanctify and cleanse it (the church v25) with the washing of water by the word.”

The implications in my life arising from God’s amazing forgiveness are at least fourfold:

It brings joy to the heart to realise that you are totally forgiven and have many other spiritual blessings as well. (Romans 5:11; 2 Corinthians 1:24; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 1:3)

A greater love for the Lord Jesus because of what He has done for you (1 Peter 1:8)

A resisting of sin so as to seek to live better for God. Because God’s grace abounds over our sin this is not a licence to carry on sinning (see Romans c6-8; 1 Corinthians 6:15-20; Galatians 5:13-18; Ephesians 4:20-5:18 etc).

In the appreciation of God’s forgiveness I should therefore forgive others. Ephesians 4:32 says: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” It has been said that: “Forgiveness is a wonderful thing until you have to do the forgiving.” We have all been offended at various times and some have also been abused and so the offence runs deep. Here we are commanded to display spiritual characteristics instead of the soul-destroying grudges of 4:31 because nothing is improved by anger and bitterness etc. But how is that done? Wuest translated the beginning of v32 as, “And be becoming kind.” We likely will not reach this revolutionary internal change all at once. So God, Who knows us, is reasonable to say that over time we learn and practise this forgiveness and we have the Holy Spirit to help us to change. We do not always want to forgive and can feel justified by thrashing around in anger. However God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you more sins than you can forgive one another. By treating others the same way as God treated us not only helps with the relationships of the people that offend us but it also helps us most of all. Colossians 3:12-13 confirms this, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”